(RIA Novosti – Moscow, July 22, 2013) Head of research at the Higher School of Economics Yevgeniy Yasin has described the Russian government instruction placing heads of state companies under obligation to account for their income and spending on par with officials as “absolute piffle”. Instead of building these mechanisms, one should continue the course to privatization, the economist has […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 23, 2013) Former Tula Governor Vyacheslav Dudka will spend nearly 9 1/2 years in a high-security prison in what marks the first time a former governor has received such a harsh sentence in modern Russia. Dudka was sentenced by a local court Monday for accepting 40 million rubles ($1.3 million) in […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 19, 2013) The head of one of the world’s largest transport companies, state-owned Russian Railways, this week dismissed as unfounded corruption allegations made against him by opposition protest leader Alexei Navalny, Prime news agency reported. In a blog post earlier in the week, Navalny published details of property and offshore companies that he claims are […]
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(Moscow Times/RIA Novosti – July 16, 2013) Though the spring session of the upper house of parliament is over, it might not signal an end to the steady stream of wealthy senators who have stepped down as the Kremlin put forward new restrictions on officials owning assets abroad. The nine members of the 166-seat Federation Council who have left since […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Manaev, special to RBTH – July 16, 2013) Since medieval times, corruption in Russia has been rooted in the essence of the governing systemnot, however, an incurable disease. The third presidential term of Vladimir Putin has been marked by an unprecedented (for post-Soviet Russia) war on corrupt officials in the central governing […]
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(RIA Novosti – WASHINGTON, July 12, 2013) Russia is doing relatively well, but needs a strong global economy to sustain and improve its recent growth, which makes the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) Summit it is hosting in September critically important to the country, Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, told a conference in Washington on Friday […]
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(Interfax -YEKATERINBURG, July 12, 2013) A third of Russian and foreign investors believe that corruption is an impediment, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) Alexander Shokhin said. “Corruption halts approximately 14% of businesses in Russia,” he said at a roundtable, “Investment Climate in Russian Regions through Foreign Investors’ Eyes”, held at the Innoprom 2013 show in […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 11, 2013) Housing and public utilities remain the biggest concern for Russians (55%) although the problem’s acuteness has been alleviated in recent months, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said. The second biggest problem is inflation (47%) and low living standards rank third (46%). Corruption and bureaucracy (44%) and healthcare problems (43%) follow. The other […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – July 10, 2013) Members of parliament have submitted a bill to the State Duma that they believe will help eradicate nepotism and corruption among state agencies. The bill proposes adding two new articles to the federal anti-corruption law. The first would ban money transfers from state agencies to organisations […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 11, 2013) The financial cost of corruption uncovered in the Russian Armed Forces this year has soared 450 percent from last year to over 4.4 billion rubles ($130 million), the Prosecutor General’s Office reported on Thursday. “The amount of damage inflicted on the state by corruption crimes this year rose by five and a […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Anton Doroshev & Ilya Arkhipov – June 9, 2013) Police, judges and lawmakers, as well as bureaucrats, are seen in Russia as the most corrupt groups, fueling popular discontent with the government, according to a global survey by Transparency International. Five percent of Russian respondents rated President Vladimir Putin’s anti-corruption campaign as effective, a sharp drop […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 10, 2013) The receipt of payment for professional services cannot be considered a bribe, the Supreme Court has ruled, a news report said Wednesday. A bribe is the receipt of money or services in return for actions performed by a public official using the authority delegated to him, the court said. The ruling may […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 9, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed an anti-corruption directive which prohibits civil servants from engaging in activities funded by foreign or international organizations. The ban will apply to civil servants employed by the Pension Fund, Social Insurance Fund, Federal Mandatory Health Insurance Fund and other organizations where appointments and dismissals are ordered by the […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 5, 2013) A former tax inspector included on a draft version of the Magnitsky List of Russian officials banned from the United States for human rights abuses has become a suspect for Russian investigators looking into a huge tax scam, Kommersant newspaper reported Friday. Olga Tsymai, a former employee of the Federal Tax Service, […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 5, 2013) A court in Yaroslavl ruled early on Friday to arrest an opposition politician who won a rare landslide victory against the ruling United Russia party in a mayoral election last year. Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov was charged along with four of his colleagues on Thursday with extorting a 14 million ruble ($420,000) bribe, investigators […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – July 5, 2013) Investigators officially charged Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov and a group of his subordinates with attempted bribery Thursday as members of the Kremlin human rights council met to discuss the case, which Urlashov’s supporters say they suspect has been fabricated by his political enemies. But members of the council, generally […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jake Rudnitsky – July 3, 2013) A Russian mayor who won a landslide victory against a candidate backed by President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party last year was detained by police on suspicion of demanding a 14 million-ruble ($421,000) kickback. Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov and two deputies threatened to stop payments to a local businessman for a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – July 3, 2013) The State Duma on Tuesday passed in the third and final reading the long-awaited economic crimes amnesty bill, which will free several thousand businessmen from the nation’s prisons. But despite the fact that the legislation was supported by all of the Duma parties when it was being prepared, only […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 2, 2013) Russia’s oldest human rights activist, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva said she criticized the economic amnesty declared by the Russian State Duma on Tuesday. “The obligation to repay damages undercuts this entire amnesty. This is a fly in the ointment,” Alexeyeva told Interfax on Tuesday. “If a person indeed did steal, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – July 2, 2013) The State Duma has approved the nominations of Sergei Stepashin, Tatyana Golikova and Andrei Makarov as candidates to head the Audit Chamber, leaving it up to President Vladimir Putin to choose one of them or award the position to somebody else by October 1, 2013, news reports said Monday. […]
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(Interfax – June 21, 2013) The Kremlin is not increasing pressure on the Russian government; President Vladimir Putin is simply changing the principles governing the work of the executive authorities, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has said. Shuvalov was speaking in an interview to internet and satellite broadcaster Dozhd TV on 21 June on the sidelines of the St Petersburg […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Artem Zagorodnov, RBTH – June 21, 2013) Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined several radically liberal economic reforms. In a move equally symbolic and practically important, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that a much-touted amnesty for businesspeople had been approved by his office and will be […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 20, 2013) Fictitious import contracts with entities from Customs Union member states Belarus and Kazakhstan accounted for 40 percent of Russia’s net capital outflow last year, business daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday citing Central Bank data. About $10 billion could have been laundered through fake imports schemes via Kazakhstan, the Central Bank said in a […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 19, 2013) Shell companies have illegally funneled 760 billion rubles ($25 billion) from Russia in the past three years, outgoing Central Bank chief Sergei Ignatyev said on Wednesday, Vedomosti business paper reported. Ignatyev who is leaving his post next week after serving three consecutive terms, made the statement in a report to the Russian parliament […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 19, 2013) The judicial department of the Russian Supreme Court has published statistics of punishments for corruption in 2012, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on Wednesday. “A total of 6,014 people were convicted for corruption in 2012,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported. According to the paper, some one-third of these people were convicted for giving bribes. “It is equally illegal […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 11, 2013) Around 13,000 people convicted of business-related crimes could be amnestied, Representative of the Russian Presidential Commission for Entrepreneur’s Rights, Andrei Nazarov, said during the discussion in the Civic Chamber. “Those 110,000 people about whom everyone is talking – this is the total number of people convicted for economic crimes. The expected amnesty could be […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Dmitry Travin – June 6, 2013) Dmitry Travin is Research Director at the European University in St. Petersburg’s Centre of Modernization Studies. Discontent may soon be the norm across all sections of Russian society. But it’s unlikely to benefit the opposition or professional classes, says Dmitry Travin. Russia viewed from the Kremlin The official Kremlin view goes something […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 4, 2013) As the fallout from the arrest of the leader of Dagestan’s capital continued on Monday, experts agreed that the event would likely send tremors throughout all of Russia. Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov, 59, was detained Saturday with the help of special forces sent by Moscow, who blocked all of […]
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(Interfax – May 29, 2013) Russian Economic Development Deputy Minister Sergei Belyakov, who supervises public-private partnership issues and liaison with business, has opposed the idea to amnesty businessmen convicted on economic counts. “I will never support this idea, never in my life,” Belyakov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday. “Punishment for a deed does not depend on the personality of […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – May 28, 2013) Russia’s Deputy Education Minister Igor Fedyukin announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing growing political tensions. “I hope that my departure will at least partially lower the unprecedented tensions that are [escalating] around decisions made by the ministry,” Fedyukin was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying. He thanked Education Minister […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – May 27, 2013) Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” has been updated for a modern audience by playwright Sasha Denisova – and you can see the results at the Mayakovsky Theater (affectionately known as the Mayakovka), as directed by Nikita Kobelev. In the politically charged atmosphere of the day, Ibsen is […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 27, 2013) Mandatory polygraph testing for current and prospective state officials will be discussed at the meeting of the presidential anti-corruption council in June, a news report said Monday. The initiative to introduce lie detector testing is currently at the planning stage, but if the proposal is accepted it will be added to anti-corruption […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 24, 2013) President Vladimir Putin, who was expected during a meeting with more than a hundred entrepreneurs on Thursday to give a nod to the State Duma to draft an amnesty act freeing thousands of imprisoned business people, said the concept needed more work, Russian television reported Thursday. Putin said at […]
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(Interfax – May 17, 2013) Corruption in Russia is a threat to national security, and cooperation with international organizations must be stepped up to fight it, Russian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka said on 17 May. He was speaking at a meeting with a delegation from the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) in Moscow, as reported by Russian […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 17, 2013) A bribery scandal at French lender Societe Generale’s Russian entity Rosbank shows that stricter measures should be implemented by both Western and Russian companies to enforce compliance with their codes of conduct, experts said. The Investigative Committee said Thursday that they have opened a criminal case into Rosbank chief […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – May 13, 2013) On the face of it, there are few similarities between the city of Blagoveshchensk, located in the Far East, and the country’s natural gas capital of Novy Urengoi, 3,000 kilometers away in the tundra just below the Arctic circle. But both cities are part of official border zone territory: […]
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(Interfax – May 13, 2013) State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has partially backed the proposal made by business ombudsman Boris Titov on amnesty for economic crimes. “Some citizens convicted for so-called economic crimes can and should be amnestied. Some of those who have committed economic crimes should still serve their sentences,” Naryshkin told reporters in the State Duma on Monday. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – May 13, 2013) The government’s fiscal watchdog has started looking at Gazprom’s books in an audit that is poised to produce exciting results, the agency’s chief said. “I think the findings will be interesting,” Sergei Stepashin, chairman of the Audit Chamber, said Friday, Interfax reported. His remarks are the latest update on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – May 8, 2013) An investigation into the embezzlement of budget funds from state-owned innovation hub Skolkovo has led to a public spat between the agency conducting the investigation and the Cabinet of Ministers, whose head, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, created the institution in 2010. On Tuesday, pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia published a damning […]
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(Bloomberg editorial – bloomberg.com – May 7, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on corruption is vital to Russia’s future. It’s also certain to fail unless he recognizes the shortcomings of his methods. In 2008, under then-President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia began a genuine and somewhat successful effort to bring its corruption laws into the first world. At the same time, the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – April 30, 2013) SOCHI The problems on Ruslan Zokhidov’s mind are not typical for a young man of his age: he is the least likely person to be found nattily dressed at a trendy night club or entering a university lugging a pile of books. Instead, Zokhidov, 19, lugs building materials […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Dmitri Travin – April 30, 2013) Dmitri Travin is Research Director at the European University in St. Petersburg’s Centre of Modernization Studies Vladimir Putin has long paid lip service to the notion that his government should address the problem of corruption. Is his new campaign for real, or will it be more of a shootout between corrupt officials […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 19, 2013) The mother and widow of whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky were in Washington on April 17, just days after the White House issued a blacklist of more than a dozen Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s prosecution and death in jail in 2009. RFE/RL’s Richard Solash spoke to Magnitsky’s mother, Natalia, at a reception […]
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(Interfax – April 18, 2013) Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov said on 18 April that “certain forces” are trying to undermine the country’s budding innovation centre, Skolkovo, which is being investigated for embezzlement, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported. Surkov, who is a member of the Skolkovo Foundation’s board of trustees, was speaking following a raid by Federal Security […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 19, 2013) The downtown office of the Skolkovo Foundation was searched Thursday as part of an ongoing corruption scandal involving two former executives whom the Investigative Committee accused of using a fraudulent tender to steal 23.8 million rubles ($789,000). A spokesman for Skolkovo Russia’s high profile project to diversify its […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – April 19, 2013) A prominent Kremlin critic in the largely rubber-stamp parliament, Ponomaryov suggested that ulterior motives lay behind Friday’s news. Investigators have accused a top manager at the government’s flagship Skolkovo Foundation of making $750,000 in improper payments to a State Duma deputy with close links to the street protest movement, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 19, 2013) Overzealousness in the fight against corruption could drain the civil service of many valuable cadres, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. Speaking at the Russia 2013 business forum on Thursday, Shuvalov said that corruption is present around the world, but in Russia it has been blown out of proportion, Vedomosti reported. […]
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(Moscow TImes – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – April 19, 2013) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. You would have thought that the Kremlin would have shown a little more appreciation for the fact that U.S. President Barack Obama approved only 18 minor figures for the open portion of the Magnitsky list. After all, the original […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 18, 2013 – Robert Coalson) The whole process took less than an hour. At 10:26 a.m. on March 18, Lyudmila Popkova was handed a piece of paper ordering her to appear before Moscow Judge Tatyana Neverova. At 11 a.m. the same day. Hustled off to court by investigators, Popkova spent 15 minutes in front of […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – April 18, 2013) Russian police raided the Skolkovo innovation hub, a project championed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a day after his speech to parliament was overshadowed by a leaked video. Investigators talked today to the foundation’s head, billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, and other top officials, Skolkovo spokesman Roman Shcherbakov said […]
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